But on the new album “Muscle Shoals Has Got The Swampers,” out Jan. 19 via Malaco Records, these genius session musicians are finally out-front. The album features 14 instrumental tracks by The Swampers, most of which were recorded during the ’70s at The Swampers’ storied funky little Sheffield studio, Muscle Shoals Sound, where even the address, 3614 Jackson Highway, is now iconic.

The result is something like The Swampers version of Booker T. & The M.G.s record. Or a Meters record. But instead of through a Memphis or New Orleans prism, “Muscle Shoals Has Got The Swampers” is filtered through their own unique North Alabama vibe.

“We decided in about 1972 or 1973 about the time we had been working with Traffic we wanted to do an album,” Hood says. Traffic in this case referring to the successful British jam-band featuring Steve Winwood. “We had made a few attempts at different times in the past and our earlier attempts had been different artists to come in and sing on these things. We got Steve Winwood to come in and sing on a couple tracks and several other artists. When we finished that album it just sounded like us backing all these different people. So, we decided we were going to be a serious studio band like Booker T. & The M.G.s or somebody and really try to do an instrumental album without singers or anything. It was kind of a trip for us because we had always worked in support of other people and other people’s songs.”

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File photo by David Hood by Dick Cooper

“Swampers,” now the opening track on “Muscle Shoals Has Got The Swampers,” was the ensemble’s first attempt at doing just that. Stylistically, the tune is nifty, tight R&B accented with snazzy Clavinet and brass. It’s an excellent entry point for the listener, followed on the LP by “Muscle Shoals Malmo Express,” a driving cut with greasy slide guitar, organ and piano. The Swampers are best known for Southern soul and classic-rock sounds. And while there are ample servings of those on the album, it’s fascinating to hear them stretch out way beyond that. “Whiplash” wiggles through Latino and second-line rhythms and even a synth breakdown that sounds straight out of the ’80s TV show “Night Rider.” “Pete’s Song,” composed by and featuring guitarist Pete Carr, is gritty, with a touch of prog. The nine-minute-plus track titled “Muscle Shoals” opens with tribal percussion before unfurling into free-jazz spaghetti. For those who thought The Swampers’ range only extended from “Mustang Sally” to “Respect,” it’s revelatory listening.

Playing on Traffic’s 1973 “Shootout At The Fantasy Factory” album truly opened musical doors for The Swampers, who grew up on Chuck Berry, the blues, Motown and the like. Beckett, Hawkins and Hood would also tour with the group, and can be heard on Traffic’s resulting live album “On The Road,” on which Johnson is credited for mixing. “That was really neat for us to leave the studio, doing three minute songs behind all these different artists and going and playing with a band like Traffic that was like a jazz-rock situation doing 20-minute songs,” Hood says. “And that is reflected in the two (‘Muscle Shoals Has Got The Swampers’) songs, ‘Don’t Bug Me Johnson’ and ‘Muscle Shoals’ because they started off as these long rambling jams and they just kind of floated from one to the other, and it was really recorded that way. It was not really intentional. It’s just what happened." The title of the slinky, Beckett-penned “Don’t Bug Me Johnson” shows a sense of humor: It’s what the keyboardist would quip to the guitarist when he was trying to focus on something at the studio.

Island Records founder and producer Chris Blackwell, the man who brought superstars like Bob Marley and U2 to the world, paid for the original ’70s Swampers instrumental album sessions, but never released the recordings, Hood says. The Swampers continued to record their own material. That is when they could squeeze in the time, as Muscle Shoals Sound was famously busy recording the likes of Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Joe Cocker, etc. “We might have a Thursday and a Friday off one week or some little piece of time and we’d jump in there and do that,” Hood says. “And it was hard to do because we were working with everybody. Studio time was really at a premium.”